


Looking Forward, Looking Back

by greygerbil



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Gifts as a sign of love, M/M, Reunion Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:47:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23947900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Alexios has to leave a wounded Brasidas behind in Sparta, but during his travels he finds things that remind him of their time together.
Relationships: Alexios/Brasidas (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 109
Collections: Id Pro Quo 2020





	Looking Forward, Looking Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



The day after Alexios had sat down with his reunited family and then visited his lover Brasidas at his sick bed, he was already packing his bags, preparing to leave Sparta again. There were a couple of fresh tracks the Cultists had left and if he wanted to ensure the safety of the people he had only just so laboriously brought back together, he could not let any chance pass to strike a blow. Still, he would have let those leads slip away without a thought if Brasidas had showed any signs of worsening or had given the slightest hint that he felt abandoned, which Alexios would not have blamed him for.

“You must go,” Brasidas had told him in no uncertain terms, half-smiling. “I will wait for you. It’s not like I can run in the state I am in now!”

So Alexios left to sail the world again. He still liked the wind in his hair at sea, the whispering quiet of a lonely forest at night, the wide open grassy planes and hills falling away under the hooves of his horse, high houses and old statues to climb. Yet, there seemed to be a tether that pulled at him, a consistent, wordless thought lingering in the back of his head. Even when he had reclaimed his citizenship six years ago, he had never considered Sparta his home before now. Alexios relished it despite the fact that it sometimes caused him to lose sleep. It had been too long since he’d had a place and people to return to who saw him as more than a friendly, unexpected visitor, not unwelcome, but not truly needed, either. He felt like he was neglecting people, but that was the toll to pay for not being incidental.

Brasidas was the one he worried about most, even though he knew it was stupid to believe that he had no one in Sparta who would care for him. Obviously a man like Brasidas had friends enough that he need not fear to be forgotten even as he dealt with serious wounds; he’d told Alexios as much when he’d fretted about leaving, not that Alexios couldn’t have guessed.

Still, it could not be fun to rest in the dark, brooding heat of a house when the summer sun shone golden on the meadows and most everyone else who hadn’t come back on his shield enjoyed the break from years of war that the fragile peace treaty of Nicias had brought.

Since Alexios had made his choice to go after the Cult, he didn’t think it made sense to dither now and waste even more time that his enemies could use to flee his grasp. However, perhaps there were still some little things he could do for Brasidas even at a distance. The idea first came to him when he strolled through a street packed with market stalls in a small seaside town, looking for a letter drop under a statue of Aphrodite he’d read about in a small note he’d picked off the body of an assassin he’d killed. As he let his gaze swerve, it fell on a stand crammed with toys for children: soldiers and animals in wood and stone, dolls made of tied sticks and cloth, spinning tops, and pots full of painted marbles.

The latter gave him pause. Brasidas had mentioned while digging through the belongings a soldier had dropped off at his house that in departing from Amphipolis, his men must have forgotten some of his things when they brought Brasidas, unconscious with a fever, to the ship. It hadn’t seemed like any of it had been terribly important, but Brasidas had muttered with a quiet curse that his _spheria_ were missing.

“Do you still play with marbles?” Alexios had asked, bemused.

“Laugh all you want. I do like having something to keep my hands busy. I had an old set that was perfectly smooth from touch.” Brasidas had shaken his head with a smile. “I guess I shall make due fiddling with the blankets.”

Back in the day, Alexios had never had enough coin for anything. Kephallonia had need of mercenaries just like any other place, but not enough to make a decent living off it, especially not with Markos siphoning too much gold into harebrained schemes. A decade after he was off that rock and out in the world, he had enough money to outfit one of the best ships sailing the seas and much to spare, yet he still followed the old habits of collecting everything that could be stripped for parts or resold and spent on little else but necessities. There hadn’t been much occasion to rest and bask in luxury, anyway.

As he dipped his fingers into a bowl of marbles, feeling their round stone surface, and imagined them playing around Brasidas’ calloused palm, he decided that men spent their money in many worse ways than this, especially to impress lovers. _I might as well._

Before leaving the market to resume his search, Alexios walked over to a scribe offering his services sitting in the shadow under an awning. He paid some change to use his utensils and a scrap piece of parchment. He’d rather not reveal too much about his relationship to Brasidas in writing in case the note ended up in somebody else’s hands, but a few words should be fine.

_I hope you are not too bored yet. -Alexios_

After adding the note, he tied the cloth sack of clicking marbles and put it in his bag so he could hand it to a reasonably trustworthy messenger at some point. First, however, there was another set of messages that needed his attention. He saw a temple of Aphrodite just down the road from the scribe, a statue of the goddess standing among blooming bushes.

-

Alexios didn’t know if Brasidas had ever gotten his first present, which was a good thing. If a messenger had been able to track him down with an answer from his lover, other people with less pleasant intentions would have been able to do the same. He had reached Arkadia during his travels now and when he went to sleep in the wilds there, with nothing but moonlight to cover him in the hot nights, he remembered his time here years ago, the breathless chase, roving mercenaries following his every step. Brasidas and him had met in secret to discuss their plans under the cover of darkness and Alexios was pretty sure it had been his willingness to safe Brasidas’ old friend despite the trouble he’d caused him that brought Brasidas into his bed for the first time – a bed which was a stack of hay in the back of a barn, but it had done just as well for their purposes. When Alexios had kept pulling stray bits of hay out of his clothes and hair the next day, he hadn’t been able to stop grinning.

They had spent the whole night in that barn, sleeping under a thick, woollen, pale green cloak that Brasidas had brought, really too small to cover both of them, yet sufficient as they pressed close to each other, listening to the rain outside. The memory lingering in his mind reminded Alexios that Sparta would soon enter its wettest season. Even as a boy, he had noticed the Eurotas swelling and the streets turning into rivers of mud at those times. If Brasidas wanted to go out, it would be good if he were covered. He had clothes, of course, but in weather like this, a lot ended up being thrown on again while still damp, since the air was too humid to ever let anything dry properly. A sick man should not take that risk, so having another cloak could not hurt.

Since Alexios knew he would run by the same village often enough before his business here was done, he paid a weaver to make him a black cloak with a border of red and yellow to mirror the colours painted on Spartan shields. He could see it take form on the loom when he passed by her shop in the mornings and evenings, and a day before his departure, she greeted him with the finished product.

Alexios had already written his note and done so six or seven times, wondering if each new version was too syrupy. In the end, he settled for a vague mention of that night which he could not stop thinking of, wondering if it had stuck in Brasidas’ mind just as much.

_When I came to Arkadia, I thought of the cloak you brought when we were here last time. It’s probably long in tatters now, though. You should have a new one. -Alexios_

-

Brasidas and Alexios had been more or less together since Arkadia, never quite putting it in words before Brasidas was wounded by Kassandra the first time, but spurning other lovers and meeting when they could. Sometimes seeing each other once or twice a year had been all that was possible. Other times, Alexios would go out of his way to sneak into Brasidas’ camp and leave before the sun came up after they had talked for hours and fucked with the intensity of men who knew it might be the last time they would see each other.

He was used to being separated from Brasidas, so why was he pining like a boy with a crush, losing all patience over following shaky leads, something he had done without complaint for a decade? Perhaps it was knowing, for the first time, that Brasidas sat waiting for him when before he could squash the idea that they might meet and be together with the argument that Brasidas was always embroiled in missions of his own that didn’t need Alexios stuck sideways in them.

When he picked out the kopis at the market to send to Brasidas, it was for no better reason than that he wanted to feel that faint connection to him again, imagining how Brasidas would unwrap his gift and perhaps find himself smiling or thinking it was useful. If he knew one thing, it was that a Spartan never turned down a decent blade. He could have sent a regular letter, of course, but there was still always the chance it would be caught by a Cultist or read by a curious messenger, so what could he have written but empty words? Better not set the Cult on Brasidas’ trail or make Brasidas the object of gossip in Sparta for having a wild mercenary as an admirer.

_A sword or spear are difficult to use when you’re on your back in bed. Take this to keep yourself safe. -Alexios_

He slid his thumb over the sharp blade, calling to mind Brasidas studying it with his trained eye, before he wrapped the note and the kopis in a rough leather hide.

-

The fibula shaped like an eagle taking flight stuck at the cut throat of the man Alexios had just killed, gold blinking through rivulets of red. Alexios tore it off like Petros had stolen it from him. The mercenary had called himself the eagle killer for months now, saying to everyone who would hear it that Alexios would die when they met, and that his bloodline and friends would be next.

Well, he had gotten Alexios’ attention. Alexios wore the bruises and cuts that proved Petros hadn’t been just another hopeless braggart, but he was dead and with him the last of the enemies Alexios had chased this time.

His first instinct was to crush the fibula under the heel of his sandal, but he stopped as he looked at it closer in the light that fell through the open doorway of Petros’ house. It was beautifully crafted and was Eagle Bearer not the name people had settled him with? He could pin it to his own chest or saddle, a grim trophy. 

However, his journey from an irrelevant sellsword out of some nowhereplace to a renowned mercenary with an illustrious nickname had not been undertaken for glory or gold. He did not mind those, certainly, but if he wanted the eagle to mean something, it had to stay with one of the people who had fed the fire of his will for the last decade.

_I had to wipe the blood off this one before I sent it to you. It belongs to a worthier man now. -Alexios_

Together with those lines, he enclosed the fibula in a small package. Alexios could at least pretend that the fierce golden eagle would protect Brasidas in his stead while he tied up his last loose ends before finally following it to Sparta.

-

Alexios had gone to his mother first just to make sure that she still had Kassandra under control, but it seemed like his family had kept their fragile peace, and so Alexios could make the walk across town to Brasidas’ house with a clear conscience. The air was warm and thick and clouds overhead promised a storm, which would give Alexios a good excuse to stay overnight.

The traders at the market hadn’t packed in for fear of the rain yet and so Alexios decided to pick up dolmades from one of them, stuffed grape leaves drenched in olive oil just like Brasidas liked them, wrapped up in another broad, green leaf like a bag.

The door to Brasidas’ house opened to a push. It looked a lot less barren than Alexios remembered it. Brasidas had not spent much time in Sparta in the last decade himself and his house had reflected it the couple of times Alexios had seen it. Most things he had kept there were old, knick-knacks collected throughout his life, like a stone toy his grandma had given him or a ring from a dead comrade, as well as pieces of armour and weapons for practical use. Now Alexios saw scrolls stuffed on the shelves, a block of ink powder and paper on a table, and, walking further inside, herbs hanging from the rafters in the kitchen, giving off mingling sharp and sweet smells, and potatoes and grain stored in barrels and sacks. A satchel laid half-opened on a table, with a few coins and a crumpled note inside.

Faint sounds of movement came from the upper floor. Alexios turned and took two steps with each jump up the stairs. Just as he had reached the top, Brasidas emerged from a hallway. He didn’t wear any bandages now, fresh scar tissue showing where they had once been, and only limped a little. The grin that spread over his face was pleased and unguarded. Alexios dropped the leaf-wrapped dolmades on a chest to his right and grabbed him for a kiss.

“Surprised?” Alexios asked, when he finally allowed Brasidas to catch his breath.

“Happy,” Brasidas corrected. “My neighbour already came by over an hour ago, saying Nikolaos’ son, the champion of Olympia, rode into town, his eagle trailing behind him.” Glancing down at the chest, he chuckled. “I see you’re not done showering me with gifts yet, either.”

Knowing that his present had found their recipient had Alexios smiling.

“Food doesn’t count,” he decided with a shrug, retrieving the dolmades. “It’s supper. I need to bribe you to skip the _syssitia_ and eat with me instead.”

“I might be convinced to tell them that I had to rest. Come.”

Brasidas placed a hand on Alexios’ back. Though the movement of his scarred shoulder looked stiff, the push had force behind it and Alexios’ heart felt easier for it. When Brasidas led him into his bedroom, he immediately noticed the cloak spread over the back of a chair. The fibula sat on the desk before it. The kopis laid by the side of Brasidas’ bed, as Alexios had suggested in his letter, with a few marbles sitting on a rumpled shirt beside it at the right distance for Brasidas to reach over when he laid down.

“Everything arrived safely, I see,” Alexios said. “I was worried it might get stolen on the way.”

“The messengers were true,” Brasidas answered. “None of them knew where you’d go next, though. I wanted to write back to you, at the very least, but I figured it was better not to hunt you down if you didn’t want to be found.” He laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. “Really, Alexios, we’ve been together for so long. It feels like you’re courting a new lover! I would have questioned if there wasn’t a handsome young man’s house these gifts should have gone to instead if I had not read your letters...”

Alexios snorted.

“What Spartan man other than you am I courting with handful of marbles?” he asked, grinning. “For something like that, they must be too young to even be an _eromenos_.”

Brasidas pinched his side, but smiled as he let the fingers of his other hand glide over the cloak.

“You sent me some good memories,” he said. “I had to leave my old cloak behind when my troops were ambushed in Thessaly. It had stopped smelling like you, anyway, so it was not the greatest loss. This one is much nicer. It must have been expensive.”

“I’ve had enough time to earn money and no one to spend it on. Besides, I paid nothing for the fibula but some blood,” Alexios said with a shrug. He didn’t care about the gold it had cost and Brasidas shouldn’t be thinking about it, either.

“So I read. You must know your blood is quite valuable to me, though, and I’d prefer it remain within you. I must hear the full story of that fight.” Brasidas picked up the golden eagle and turned it in his hand. “And then I suppose I must tell it to others. I have been asked about the eagle.”

“What did you say?”

“That the Eagle Bearer wants to keep an eye on me,” Brasidas answered.

Alexios knew he was grinning like a fool by seeing Brasidas’ indulgently amused expression. Obviously, Brasidas could be no more obvious than that, as two full-grown men like them could not officially announce their relationship as if they were husband and wife. Yet of course it happened, at times, that two men or two women stuck together like this; and Brasidas had never married, which people had certainly gossiped about, anyway. His gift had been meant as a good luck charm, but Brasidas had turned it into a claim that anyone with a head on their shoulders should recognise.

“As for the blade – I have sharpened it and keep it under my old clothes when I sleep. I’ve not yet had occasion to use it, thankfully, but I have trained with it at times.” Brasidas’ brows drew together and the muscles in his arm tightened as if he was gripping an invisible sword, his gaze catching on the bright steel of the kopis. “I doubt I will ever be in a phalanx again, but I refuse to become a defenceless old man just yet.”

“I’ll keep you busy on the training grounds,” Alexios said, grasping Brasidas’ wrist. “I won’t let you off easy, you hear?”

Brasidas chuckled, but his expression remained clouded as he turned to Alexios.

“I don’t know if I can be an interesting opponent for you again,” he admitted.

The unhappy honesty in his words hurt, but if a good fight was all Brasidas could have given him, Alexios wouldn’t be here still smitten years after that night in the barn.

“That’s alright. As you said, the Eagle Bearer keeps an eye on you. We’ll be fine.”

Brasidas pulled Alexios’ head close and gently knocked their foreheads together, the pained smile on his face lingering for a moment before he shook his head as if to rid himself of his dark thoughts.

“Enough of that! This is no talk for the evening of your return.” He brushed his hand along the cloak again. “When you gave me all these gifts, I wondered what I could do for you. I’m not making large strides outside the city yet and our markets are still rather barren as we recover from war. I don’t think I could have found something as fitting as the things you gave me.”

“I wanted nothing in return,” Alexios said, crossing his arms over his chest. The joy he’d gotten thinking about Brasidas opening his presents had been his reward. Besides, it had been in a way an apology for not being here in person as Brasidas recovered, an attempt to pay that large debt, even though he knew Brasidas did not blame him.

“I know, and I fear I didn’t come up with much to gift you in return. I thought I could at least welcome you as you deserve, though.”

With those words, Brasidas grasped Alexios by the shoulders and turned him towards his bedstead. Alexios brightened, eagerly sliding his arms around Brasidas as Brasidas kissed him soundly, with just the same heat and skill that Alexios remembered and which still made him shiver even to think about.

“That’s the kind of gift I won’t refuse,” he murmured into Brasidas’ mouth.

Brasidas’ eyes narrowed with a ribald smile.

“That’s not all I prepared. I did say I was warned you’d come, remember? I figured since we both waited so long...”

As he spoke, he took Alexios’ hand and guided it to his backside. He was dressed in a chiton belted loosely at the hip and, as Alexios realised when he reached underneath, it was all he wore. As he dragged his fingers between Brasidas’ cheeks, he felt the flat circle of a stone plug as well as slippery residue of oil.

Perhaps the months spent celibate had something to do with it, but Alexios felt himself grow hard against Brasidas’ thigh, arousal coming fast in a way that befit a much younger man. His lover showed his teeth in a grin and yanked Alexios even closer before he leaned down to nip at his throat, hands running over the collection of weapons on his back, grasping Leonidas’ spear and the sword and the dagger Alexios carried and letting them drop on a blanket bunched up at the foot of the bed one by one.

Brasidas’ chiton and belt went in one motion, but Alexios still wore his armour, dusty from the road and warm from the evening sun, when they went down together. As Brasidas pulled Alexios on top of him, he did not seem to mind, instead tugging down Alexios’ underwear as he reached under his skirt, distracted from kissing Alexios’ bare shoulders and neck by Alexios’ hungry mouth trying to capture him again. Knowing now how eagerly Brasidas had anticipated his return, Alexios could not wait, lust coiling in his belly like a snake. Hopefully, he could feel him skin on skin for the rest of the night, but now he needed to have him, to reassure himself he really was welcome.

Gently, Alexios eased the plug out of Brasidas. He’d obviously used copious amounts of oil to prepare himself, still wet for him, slack as Alexios pushed two fingers inside and heard a wordless rumble grow in his lover’s chest. Had this been a different evening, he would have enjoyed teasing him more, gotten Brasidas to tell him what he’d imagined when he’d opened himself up for Alexios. One look at Brasidas’ face and all those thoughts were gone now. Alexios hooked his arms under his knees and lined himself up, hiding his face against Brasidas’ shoulder as he pushed into him for fear of something unknown showing on his face – as if he hadn’t already bared everything to Brasidas too many times over the years. His stubble scraped against the new scars and he turned his head to kiss the ruined flesh. Brasidas wrapped his arm around Alexios neck.

He felt hasty, clumsy, boyish as he thrust into him, but Brasidas did not seem to mind. But of course, it made sense that he forgave him such small mistakes. He’d stayed with him after Alexios’ sister had run him through with her spear twice. There was nothing that could take this man from Alexios’ side, and as for Alexios, he’d fought beasts of myth and at this point was not afraid to face the gods themselves if it meant staying with Brasidas.

Brasidas grabbed his face with both hands and dragged him into another kiss. Alexios could feel now the difference between the strength in his two arms, but they both held him well enough and that was what mattered right now.

He came too fast, deep inside him, where he stayed as he reached between them and gripped Brasidas with quick, rough strokes that tightened at the base, just how he’d learned he liked it years ago. Brasidas was not a loud man, but Alexios loved watching him pant for air, sweat building on his forehead, in the hollow of his collarbones, colour rising up from his chest before he came.

When he was finished, Alexios lowered himself carefully against Brasidas, heedless of the mess they had made, testing if he could still carry his weight. When Brasidas did not complain, he rested against him, wishing he had taken off his armour after all, but happy to smell him, feel him, Brasidas’ body still warm around his cock, against his skin.

A rustle had him opening his eyes. Brasidas had tugged the cloak off the back of the chair and spread it out over Alexios’ back, smiling at him.

“Hopefully we’ll stay together for longer than a night this time,” he said with mirth in his voice and a serious look in his eyes.

“You won’t be rid of me that easily ever again,” Alexios promised.


End file.
